St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-04-29
THEY STILL DRAW
The Meetings of Jones and Small
Continue to be Largely
Attended.
The Morning Sermon at Centenary
Church Marked by Deep
Religious Fervor.
Full Text of the Powerful Sermon of Rev.
Sam Small at the Afternoon
Service.
His Text For Here Have We No Con-
tinuing City, but We Seek One
to Come"
Character Building the Purpose for
Which God Has Placed all Men
on Earth.
Caustic Reference to the Salo on Busi-
ness and the Interstate
Commerce Law.
Character Building the Purpose for
Which God Has Placed all Men
on Earth.
ness and the Interstate
Commerce Law.

people from gathering TO listen TO the great
ast of modern evangelists. The morning
meeting at Centenary church was charac-
,erized by deep religious fervor. and the
meetings in the afternoon and evening,
both of which were largely attended, dis
played an increasing interest In the
afternoon Sam Small preached powerful
sermon. He said:
will read from Hebrews xiii, IA: For here
1ave we no continuing city, but we seek one
o come.'' We are naturally and rightly con-
.erned every day about our environments in
his world. 1t is right, and wise, and proper
hat men should look after their daily sur
,oundings, and their daily comforts, and those
:hings which will help them to be useful and
honorable aud Cody men in this present life.
And the first impulse OF communal life in the
world, when men cease to be nomadic, and
cease TO range the forests and hills and daleS,
and search for their food among the wild
animals. and among the fishes of the sea alone,
camping wherever the nightfall finds them,
The first impulse they had when they banded
together in communal life was to build per-
manent habitationS, to make for themselves
homes, and finally to aggregate these until
they builded cities. When the floods had
covered the face OF the earth, and all man
kind had been drowned out of existence ex-
eept Noah and his family, they came forth
again to people the world, and had peopled it
up TO a certain point, and they all kept close
together, when they came to a definite under
standing as to their purpose in the world
And for the future they decided to build
themselves a great tower whose top should
reach unto heaven. l don't know where we
got the idea that they were building the tower
Of Babel to escape
THE SECOND FLOOD.
except it was from ignorant people teaching
as so in the Sunday school. They didn't
build the tower of Babel to escape another
hood Why, God had told them he would
never destroy mankind with flood again,
and to prove the truth of His promise TO them
He had written the seal of the declaration
across the face of every storm that raised
above their horizon in all the brilliant colors
Of the rainbow. And they said, ''Go to, let
rs build US a tower whose top shall reach
unto heaven and get to ourselves a great
name" 1t was for fame; it was for pride;
It was for the purpose of establishing some
thing permanent in its nature and magnifi-
cent in it proportions and enduring in its
nature. that which might testify to succeed
ing generations and TO the world at large
what great. powerful, and executive people
they were. But the history of Babel and the
history Of all great constructions of men from
that day down to the present teaches US
the truth of the declaration in the Bible. and
teaches US the truth that is written all over
the pages of ancient as well as modern
history tlaL Whatever we Dullu IN lQlS WOrlQ we
build for decay We build it simply that the re-
morseless tramp of time shall pulverize it
into the beauty of ruin, and the corroding
finger of past ages shall diSmantle it of its
beauty a2d leave il in wretched destruction
we build for decay. and there was no truer
more precious and good thing written by
Macauley when he pictured the New Zea-
.ander sitting among the arches of London
bridge, with his sketch book in hand making
pictures of deSolation Of that great city and
capital of the world, and wondering what
manner of people had once inhabited that
world. And it is not impossible that that
may yet be a fact in the worlds
history 1t is not yet impossible that
with all the ambitious, all of the grand
enterprise of Minneapolis, that some
one from the regions of the Zulus
may yet stand upon the shores of the Falls Of
St. Anthony and look around upon the dis
mantled glories Of this yet to be more mag
niicent city. Yet we are worried and troubled
about what we shall build and how we shall
build il, and how permanent it is to be, aud
what uses we shall put it to, and how it is to
testify to the grandeur and enterprise and
GLORIOUS LIBERALITY
of ourselves. However long Minneapolis
may stand, however long London may stand,
however long Paris may stand, however long
New York may endure. this fact is true, that
here we have no continuing city; for it is
but very few years until every one of you
every inhabitant of Minneapolis to-day-will
haze found another city, and it will have
been the Macpelah of the dead. And then
Minneapolis may as well have been destroyed
so far as you are concerned. When once
you are dead Minneapolis is gone forever
You go and stand in Central park. New York,
and see there that wondrous great granite
figure of the obelsk of Rameses, as it points
toward the sky of a new world and exposes
its cabaistic sides before the gaze Of curious
visitors and If tells in itS mute plnuuapoa 10
story of part age, past civilization, and a
people who lost their prestige and their glory
in the world. You stand upon the banks of
the Thames, III London, and see Cleopatra s
needle as it sits there an everlasting sentinel;
it seems to watch the passing fleets of the ma
tious as they go up and down that great river.
and yet it testifies that it was monument to
the glory of a people long since dead and
that now it is nothing but the curio of new
people. Stand upon the Place de La Con-
corde of Paris; there is the great obelisk of
Luxor looking as bright and glorious
in all its proportions as when it
stood in the City Of the Sun, and pointed with
index finger up to the thing they worshipped
as a God. Now all OF these are simply the
resurrected monuments out of the buried
sands of the centuries to testify to us who
look upon them their power in the past
However grand may be our constructions,
HOWEVER MIGHTY OUR WORKS
in this world, they are built for decay and
cannot survive 1.-THE wreck of matter and the
crush of worlds.' There is but one thing in
this world on which the stamp and seal of
everlasting permanency can be put, and that
is upon the character OF men. And charac-
ter building is the purpose for which God has
put you and put me in this world amid these
surroundings and with all the grand posi-
bilities we have, and that we are endowed
with. For while our grand constructions
may pass away with the purpose and with
the ages. the thing which is immortal is my
character and your character. And amid
these surroundings God expects US to
so build and so form our charac-
in the final permanency of eternal glory.
And we ought to be more concerned my
brother, about how we build our character
than how we build our postoffice, our hotels
and exposition buildings. There are said to
be key notes in architecture. I remember
once OF reading monologue on architecture
written by man who was attempting to
show that in architecture there were key
notes just like there are in music Every
one of the tunes in that song book are set to
particular key, and so he said every great
construction that was architectural had its
peculiar key notes. Why, he said, that is the
reason why the walls of Jericho had fallen
down at the blowing of the ramb's horn until
at last they struck the key note on which the
wall was built. and the vibrations then
tumbled them to the ground. He said if he
could find the key note on which the arches
of London bridge was built, he could stand
near by and play upon his violin, and sound
that note until the vibrations of the sur
rounding atmosphere would shake the
mighty structure into the bottom of the
river. / don't take much stock in mis-
FANCIFUL INTERPRETATION
/ say it to you very frankly. But I say